Search results for "Environmental geology"
showing 10 items of 10 documents
ERT and IPT surveys to check the integrity of the geomembrane in the landfill of Bellolampo (Palermo, Italy)
2016
In landfills, changes in resistivity and chargeability can be related to the characteristics of the waste and they can be abrupt and considerable within short distances. These physical properties are function of generation, mobility and degree of saturation of the leachate, gas generation, compaction density and variability. These relationships mean that it can be possible to get an overall image of the quantity and characteristics of the waste from surface electrical measurements over the landfill. In this paper, we present and discuss the results of three electrical tomographies carried out in the landfill site of Bellolampo (Palermo, Italy). The main aim of these surveys was to check the…
Cluster analysis to support microzonation studies
2015
In recent times the use of microtremor techniques for subsoil investigation increased significantly. The use of HVSR (Horizontal to Vertical Spectral Ratio)technique for seismic microzoning studies allows in many case to obtain detailed reconstruction of the roof of the seismic bedrock and to identify areas with similar seismic behaviour. Two different algorithms of clusteringhave been tested on a HVSR datasets acquired for studies of seismic microzoning in various Sicilian urban centers. HVSR data were previously properly processed to extract frequency and amplitude of peaks by a code based on clustering of HVSR curves determined in sliding time windows.To select an optimal set of time win…
Integrated geophysical surveys in the tarragona cathedral
2009
An integrated geophysical survey has been conducted at the Tarragona’s Cathedral (Catalonia, NE Spain) with the aim to detect the existence of archaeological remains of the Roman’s temple devoted to August. Many hypotheses have been proposed about its possible location, the last ones regarding the inner part of the Cathedral, which is one of the most famous temple of Spain (12th century) evolving from Romanesque to Gothic styles. A project including electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), ground probing radar (GPR) and frequency domain electromagnetics (FDEM) has been planned over one year and conducted during a week of intensive field survey. From all the methods applied, both ERT and GPR…
Seismic Characterization by Inversion of HVSR Data to Improve Geological Modelling
2014
SUMMARY An application of HVSR inversion is presented in order to verify the effectiveness of this technique for purposes of geological reconstruction of the subsoil finalized to studies of seismic microzonation of heavily urbanized areas, where few stratigraphic and geophysical constraints are available and most of the information are derived from the geological maps. In such cases the uncertainty of the results is is enhanced by doubts on the nature of the H/V peaks, not always caused by stratigraphic discontinuities, and to the subjective choices done especially in the step of signal preprocessing. The investigated area (Altavilla Milicia, Sicily) includes the town center and the adjacen…
Seismostratigraphic modeling using constrained HVSR Data
2017
An application of HVSR inversion is presented in order to verify the effectiveness of this technique for purposes of reconstruction of the buried geological setting where stratigraphic constraints are available. Specifically, the reconstruction of the stratigraphy in the studied area has been obtained by a seismic-stratigraphic three-dimensional modeling. This allowed for geophysical and geognostic data derived from surveys carried out during this study, as well as previously by the municipality of Palermo.
Comparison of different acquisition patterns for 2D tomographic resistivity surveys
2015
A systematic comparison is presented between some 2D resistivity models and their images by the inversion of synthetic datasets relating to three different arrays, suitable for multichannel data acquisitions (dipole-dipole (DD), Wenner-Schlumberger (WS) and multiple gradient (MG)). The goal is to study how the measurement errors affects the resolution of the tomographic models and the ability to retrieve correct information on buried targets. We considered different data acquisition patterns, gradually increasing the complexity of the combinations of potential spacing and dipolar distance. To this end we increased the number of current dipoles to obtain approximately the same amount of meas…
Geophysical and geotechnical investigations to support the restoration project of the Roman ‘Villa del Casale’, Piazza Armerina, Sicily, Italy
2011
A multidisciplinary geophysical and geotechnical study, including some non-invasive geophysical applications, was carried out during the restoration of the ‘Villa del Casale’, a Roman villa discovered near Piazza Armerina (Sicily, Italy) in 1929, famous for its Roman floor mosaics. The project aims were to characterize the geology of the subsoil and provide information for solving the main building structural problems including the subsidence of some parts of the floor and the detachment of the tesserae (i.e., the tiles) of the mosaics. Another goal was the detailed study of the underground structures of the Corridor of the Great Hunt, a part of the villa strongly affected by subsidence and…
A Low Cost Customizable Micro-ROV for Environmental Research - Applications, Advances and Challenges
2016
Summary Several shallow submarines areas are characterized by considerable releases of hydrocarbon gases, which, during earthquakes or volcanic activity, may suddenly and violently occur. In some instances, changes in chemical and physical properties of gas emissions, which are generated by geothermal systems connected to the volcanoes’ plumbing system, are important precursors of volcanic activity and useful indices for the study of the geothermal field. Furthermore, some superficial structures such faults, landslide slopes or archaeological relics should be studied with such a high detail that geophysical and bathymetric surveys are unable to provide. In response to the needs increasingly…
3D Numerical Modelling of Salt Tectonics
2017
Summary Many factors have been suggested to affect the development of salt structures, including sedimentation, brittle sediment deformation, multiple tectonic events and basement topography. To unravel the relative importance of these processes, we performed high resolution 2D and 3D thermo-mechanical simulations that take these factors into account, while incorporating nonlinear salt creep laws and visco-elasto-plastic rock properties. Simulations show that the sedimentation rate affects both the speed with which structures form, and the spacing between the salt structures, which is larger for higher rates. Consistent with earlier sandbox experiments, we find that there is a feedback betw…
Seismic investigation for the characterization of a gravity concrete dam
2016
Monitoring of large-scale infrastructures plays an important role for public safety and prevention. The control of the safety assessment of a dam is largely dependent on knowledge of the mechanical parameters of the actual construction, as well as its geological substratum. The application of geophysical methods can considerably contribute to the examination indicating the less consolidated material and the degradation of mechanical parameters. A seismic tomographic approach has been used in a typical gravity concrete dam without reinforcement to detect mechanical properties of the body of the dam and its geological setting. Three seismic travel time tomographies in the dam body as well as …